


The Man With Two Broken Hearts

by asarahworld



Series: The Doctor and Rose Tyler [19]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Pre-Episode: s10e01 The Pilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 13:29:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11291637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asarahworld/pseuds/asarahworld





	The Man With Two Broken Hearts

There is a third photograph in the office, hidden away from the view of the students and from Nardole. There have been enough questions about River and Susan, and the Doctor shudders to think what Nardole would say about the occupant of this photograph. He runs his thumb along the frame, his worn face unconsciously softening. Not for the first time, he wonders why the TARDIS all but forced him to take these photographs into the office.

The significance of the people in the pictures is clear enough, to the Doctor at least. River Song, a friend he’d seen for the last time while knowing that she was going to her death in the Library, a friend whose parents he had been responsible for and lost, a friend who had loved him, a love that he’d tried to reciprocate but never got quite right. Why River’s picture was here was very clear. And Susan. Oh, but he missed her. He’d thought, vaguely, that perhaps if he saw her every day that he might work up the nerve to check in on her. That was what grandfathers were supposed to do, look out for their grandchildren. But Susan was not a child, and hadn’t been when she’d left the TARDIS all those centuries ago (from his perspective of course, for her it had only been a mere fifty-three years).

Slowly, the Doctor removes the third photograph from where it was hidden, placing it on the desk beside the others. It frames a woman, this one bottled blonde. She, unlike the others, is smiling. Not that River had known in that instance that it would be near-immortalized in a picture, nor had Susan ever realized that he would still carry her school photo. Footsteps echo from the corridor and the Doctor quickly hides the frame under some papers.

“You have students looking for you.” It was only Nardole.

“You know my office hours,” the Doctor replies airily, at least, as airily as his Scottish brogue allows.

“And they started twenty minutes ago,” Nardole says, annoyed. “And besides, I’m not your secretary.”

“No?” The Doctor asks as Nardole leaves. He takes Rose’s picture from under the papers, looking into her hazel eyes. I miss you, he thinks. I’m allowed to miss you (even though he’d sent her away), but do you ever miss me? He doesn’t suppose that she does, after all she should be living quite happily with his Metacrisis self. Still, he hopes, rather selfishly, that she thinks of this him on occasion, that she still wonders about the man with two broken hearts.


End file.
